Necessary Trouble America In Revolt Sarah Jaffe by Sarah Jaffe 9781568585376, 1568585373 instant download after payment.

The 2008 financial crisis crystallized for people around the country the fact that something was wrong. Americans had already been losing faith in elites who had failed to protect them from crisis after crisis & disaster after disaster. After the collapse, we expected someone to have a solution but were inevitably disappointed. Instead, we got high & rising unemployment, foreclosures spiraling out of control, and, as the protest chant went, “banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

The spark was slow to start, but it has grown since. Tea Partiers challenged conservative politicians to keep their promises; Wisconsinites took over their capitol to demand a halt to cuts to their union rights; Walmart & fast-food workers went on strike for a raise; Wall Street found itself Occupied; the deaths of unarmed young men touched off a twenty-first-century black freedom struggle. The movements swelled, intersected, & spread around the country, helped along by social media....

Sarah Jaffe leads readers into the heart of these movements, explaining what has made ordinary Americans become activists. As Jaffe argues, the financial crisis in 2008 was the spark, the moment that crystallized that something was wrong. For years, Jaffe crisscrossed the country, asking people what they were angry about, & what they were doing to take power back. She attended a people’s assembly in a church gymnasium in Ferguson, Missouri; walked a picket line at an Atlanta Burger King; rode a bus from New York to Ohio with student organizers; & went door-to-door in Queens days after Hurricane Sandys. 

From the successful fight for a 15 minimum wage in Seattle & New York to the halting of Shell’s Arctic drilling program, Americans are discovering the effectiveness of making good, necessary trouble. Regardless of political alignment, they are boldly challenging who wields power in this country.